Yesterday a news item caught my attention in more ways than one. A Bombay couple had challenged the high court on the ban on gender choice. They wanted to chose the sex of their third child needless to see they wanted a boy.

According to this educated couple: In their opinion to have a male child in India is better, as they say the country is not socially or economically ready to accept a female child.

The same item reminded sottovoce that 2500 girl foetuses are aborted every day! This case raises a plethora of questions and may have far reaching consequences. It is not just one isolated case that concerns a well to do family with two daughters but one in which the respondents to the petitioner are all the unborn girls of India.

A wrong decision in this case may increase by quantum leaps the 2500 foetuses that die everyday. That the petition should come from an educated family is even more disquieting as it cuts the sails out of the uphill and often impossible task of trying to convince the larger population of the importance of the girl child in any society.

Furthermore a wrong cannot be made right just by numbers and absurd equations: you can chose the sex if you have one, two or x amount of daughters. It is evident that for that family getting the right sex entails taking on a formidable adversary - nature - and may result in killing many a girl foetus on the way.

Maybe the couple in question also forgot that their chosen child will one day need a wife! It is true that even among the well endowed a daughter-in-law is looked down upon if she cannot produce that male child, but one would expect young educated couples to be able rise above this. The fact that this couple chose to seek legal absolution for such a dastardly act is even more chilling.

I hope the court takes all this into consideration and pronounces a judgement that will once for all protect the already precarious condition of the girl child in India.